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Possibility of NVDA being ported to ARM architecture for use with Windows 8 RT/Phone 8 #2608

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nvaccessAuto opened this issue Aug 20, 2012 · 6 comments
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Possibility of NVDA being ported to ARM architecture for use with Windows 8 RT/Phone 8 #2608

nvaccessAuto opened this issue Aug 20, 2012 · 6 comments
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close/cantfix enhancement

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Reported by nvdakor on 2012-08-20 06:33
Hi,
Unless if there is an answer out there, I'd like to know: as Windows 8 release time approaches, one of the questions that users might ask would be, "would NVDA run on my ARM tablet or on my new Win8 phone?" I'd like to know NVAccess's position on possibility of porting NVDA to ARM-based architecture such as Win8 RT or WinPhone 8, with a possible concern about NVDA being made into Metro UI app for use on touchscreens or ARM computers. Thanks.
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Comment 1 by jteh on 2012-08-20 07:30
Windows Rt (and probably Windows Phone 8) will only allow you to use third party applications written using WinRT. You can't develop applications using the Win32 APIs. For a start, Python hasn't yet been ported to WinRT and i can't find a clear answer on whether this is likely or even possible. WinRT imposes significant restrictions, so I'm not sure whether a third party screen reader (i.e. anything other than Narrator) can even be written for WinRT. Even if it is possible, porting would certainly require a huge amount of work and some functionality (such as browse mode) would very probably have to be completely redesigned, if not removed altogether.

In short, we aren't sure whether this is possible, either now or in the future. Assuming it is, it unfortunately isn't something we will be doing in the near-term or even mid-term.

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Comment 2 by elliott94 on 2012-08-20 08:15
Wasn't an early implementation of this demonstrated on episode 3 of the podcast, running on a Samsung tablet? Was that running under Win 8 RT, or something different? Either way, it sounded nice.

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Comment 3 by jteh on 2012-08-20 08:19
That was Windows 8 on a tablet using the x64 architecture. Windows 8 RT is for tablets using the ARM architecture.

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Comment 4 by elliott94 (in reply to comment 3) on 2012-08-20 11:58
Replying to jteh:

That was Windows 8 on a tablet using the x64 architecture. Windows 8 RT is for tablets using the ARM architecture.

That makes sense; would the Samsung tablet that you demonstrated be the equivalent of the Microsoft Surface Pro?

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Comment 5 by jteh (in reply to comment 4) on 2012-08-20 23:43
Replying to elliott94:

That makes sense; would the Samsung tablet that you demonstrated be the equivalent of the Microsoft Surface Pro?

No idea. There'll be many different x64 tablets, just like there are many different x64 desktops and laptops.

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Comment 6 by jteh on 2012-10-30 00:39
Microsoft have confirmed for me (unfortunately not in writing yet) that it will not be possible to run any third party screen readers on Windows 8 RT or Phone.
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